


The Losers

by Batagur



Series: The Losers [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, M/M, Quantum Mirror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-18
Updated: 2007-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:03:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batagur/pseuds/Batagur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Across the Quantum Mirror, in another reality, the Ori destroyed Earth and broke the link between Pegasus and the Milky Way. This is how the other-half live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings and Notes: Imperfect season 9 spoilers. All Abydonian spoken here is the result of some ancient Egyptian translation done using these resource pages: http://home.prcn.org/sfryer/egypt.html -It is far far far from perfect.
> 
> Yes, there was a heavy Firefly influence in this story. You may even recognizes stolen aspects from Joss Whedon's series in this story. Disclaimer time for that: Don't own them, not trying to pass them off as my very own invention, and I certainly make no profit from their usage.
> 
> This is the abridged version.

September 2008 PX2-755 Orion's belt

The light of the twin moons reflected off his silver hair and his profile set in deep, like the sculpture of a frowning messiah. In the brightly lit night, his eyes were black pools shining like obsidian. They looked surreal and exotic, pupil-less disks that saw cold truth and held no mercy. But when he spoke, terse and indifferent, the spell was broken. He seemed more like a petulant old man than a general and a leader of men.

"You really want to do this the hard way?" Jack O'Neill scowled at the prisoner. "I hate the hard way. The hard way sucks."

The prisoner simply lifted his head to stare down his nose at the general. Ori minion head to head with the leader of low-life scum, the man felt he had the right. Teal'c shifted on his feet, an expression crossing his features as if he literally needed to wipe that look off the man's face. Cameron Mitchell frowned, his fingers flexing into fists.

"One more time, sonny." The general spoke slowly, his eyebrows rising as he regarded their captive. "Were did they take the Tok'ra called Selmak?"

At the mention of her father's symbiote's name, Sam twitched involuntarily. The anger inside was overwhelming at times. She knew better than to succumb to it. Losing control would gain nothing now. Sam clenched her hands behind her and let cooler heads do the dirty work for now.

"I told you, old man, I don't know… and if I did know, I wouldn't tell the likes of you."

The general sighed, and then he shrugged. He turned as if to move away, to perhaps address Teal'c, but then he spun back, lightening fast, his fist pounding into the man's jaw with all the momentum of his body weight behind it. The man went down hard.

"Ow," Jack said and shook his hand out. "I fucking hate the hard way."

The prisoner moaned on the dry cracked ground. He sat up and spat dark. Sam wondered if the general had loosened teeth for him.

"Mind you," The general addressed the man directly, "That was only step one of the hard way. Step two requires the help of my associate Teal'c here. Step three…. Well, we just hand you over to Carter. Did I mention Carter?" The general jerked his thumb back in her direction. "Her daddy's the Tok'ra. She doesn't like you much right now."

The man looked up angry. "I told you I don't know."

"So you're saying we can skip steps two and three?" The general asked blandly. He looked back over his shoulder at Mitchell, nodding in his direction. Mitchell acknowledged the silent order and headed back up the gangway of the ship. In a few moments, Sam heard the cold fusion reactors hum to life and the port and starboard turbines for atmospheric lift began to power up.

The man stood up and looked at the general. "Gonna run now? You know the command will return. They will come back with more. They will crush those who reject the word…"

Sam turned away. She'd heard all this shit before. It wouldn't be long until the sniveling little bastard started quoting the Book of Origin. Sam looked over at Vala, who crossed her arms before her chest and rolled her eyes.

"Never mind," the general said, and then placed a boot in the man's chest in mid ramble, knocking him backwards into the hard flow of the starboard turbine. The man's scream was short. The shredding sound lasted a bit longer.

"I hate proselytizing," he said with a contrite look as he glanced about at his crew. Sam looked to Daniel, who stood to the side, his face lit by the glow of the ship's cargo bay internal lights, his eyes unreadable behind his glasses. His full lips were turned down in a contemplative frown.

"I'd hate to be the Jehovah's Witness that showed at your door," Daniel said.

The general shrugged. "I never had a honkin' huge GE CF6 turbine engine handy about the house."

Daniel shrugged in return.

"Let's get," the general sighed.  
~*~

Daniel followed Sam and Vala up the gangway of the ship. He could see the tension in Sam's shoulders. That Ori toady hadn't known where the last ship took Jacob. He had merely been a cog in the system, too low on the chain of command to possess any real information.

There had been a time when Daniel might have protested the man's senseless death. Now, he had watched it with little concern. When had life become so cheap? Who knew? Who cared? The bigger issue was survival. They had to survive. They were cogs in a system, too, but they were cogs in a system with too few cogs as it was. The wheel could not afford to lose more. They were what were left on the chessboard when the bishops, the queen and the knights had been swept away: a few pawns and a rook to protect the king.

Jack was behind him, ambling slowly in his tracks. The prisoner had called him an old man. Daniel had seen that old man kill with a speed and an efficiency that rivaled any younger solider. Jack was not like most men. He didn't seem to believe in his own age except when it was convenient. It was always convenient when he wanted a little more respect out of everyone else.

Not much had changed in how they treated each other, though. Sam and Mitchell called Jack "Sir." Teal'c still called him " O'Neill." Vala called him "Jack" when he was being inviting, but "General" when he was being unpleasant.

Daniel called him Jack, as he always had and usually followed with the phrase "stop being an ass."

Daniel turned as he reached the top of the ramp. He watched Jack, his head bowed and his frown deep, push himself up the last few steps, as if he were exhausted beyond words. Jack's steps ringing on the metal gangway was a muted shuffle beneath the roar of the revving engines. Perhaps he was tired. The last few days had been particularly nerve wracking.

Perhaps he *was* tired, but he was still beautiful. Jack was beautiful. He looked up into Daniel's eyes as he hit the top of the ramp. For a moment, the hard expression that marked the years on Jack's face melted away. Jack took a sharp breath and his brows drew in as he regarded Daniel.

"We have a ways to go," Jack said.

Daniel nodded. They did have a long way to go. The ship was the only home they had left. Their hope was the only thing they possessed. They had each other.

"What do we do if we find the convoy?"

It was a simple question. They needed a strategy, something the other points of the resistance hadn't suggested when the Intel about Selmak became available. Daniel wondered if they were only chasing these leads to satisfy Sam's need to do something.

Jack frowned at Daniel, regarding him as if he had just said something completely out of character. "We'll… think of something."

Daniel smiled. He loved Jack.

Jack moved past him into the cargo hold, and Daniel hit the hydraulic door controls. The gangway moved back with a grating metal against metal sound as the cargo bay doors slid into locked position.

The ship was of Tollan design, secured by a deal with a trader who also had two gliders and a smaller scout class cruiser in a very bad state of disrepair. The cargo ship didn't have weapons systems, but that didn't mean they couldn't retrofit them on. Sam and Teal'c were well on the way to having missile capability at least off the aft bays. They just needed the missiles.

Jack stopped in the middle of the hold, turning to Daniel once more. "I don't suppose you sniffed out more coffee at the last pit stop?"

Daniel walked to Jack's side. "The coffers are full."

"Gotta bad taste in my mouth."

"Me too."

They walked up the bay stairs and out of the cargo hold together.  
~*~

He learned to fly the ship from the general. It had been a little harder than it first appeared, but Mitchell was confident. General O'Neill was a very intelligent man and a highly skilled tactician. He was also a skilled pilot who taught himself how to fly Ancient technology craft. The Tollan craft had been a bit more of a challenge, he had said, but it was fly-able. Mitchell had nodded at that and then paid close attention as the general and Teal'c had explained the ship's controls.

It was his job now to pilot the ship, even though everyone except Daniel could probably fly her. He didn't doubt that even Vala knew how to pilot the old cargo/transport vessel. Mitchell always felt one step out of the loop at times like that.

It was harder now that they had no access to the network of stargates. The Ori had seen to that. The stargates were an obvious strategic weakness as long as they stayed unsecured. Once the Ori had gained control of the network through the supergates, it had practically been all over for the protected planets. Earth refused to submit. It had been summarily destroyed.

Sam came on the bridge and sat at the copilot chair. Mitchell looked over to her, noting her profile. There were only a few people she let sit on her blind-side. Mitchell was one of them. Samantha Carter had been a bright and cheerful, sweet and nice, incredibly intelligent and capable woman. Now, she was simply the goddess of revenge. Her hair was cropped almost to the skull and her scarred and useless left eye covered with a black patch, she was still a beautiful woman, just in a harsher kind of way.

Sam had seen too much, survived too much. They all had.

"Take it easy on the burn out," she said softly. "The fuel they sold us on In'takra was a bit watered down. I don't want us to stall out."

"Well, that sucks." Mitchell scowled in her direction, but she didn't turn to face him. She continued to watch the vista beyond the view screen.

"Tell me about it. You're not going to be the one cleaning the gunk out of the injectors for the next few days we get planet-side."

Mitchell snorted in reply. It was Sam's job to keep the space-born Buick Regal flying. It was Mitchell's job to fly her.

Mitchell took another hard look at Sam. The lines of worry etched into her face could have been age or could have been anxiety. All Mitchell knew was that she had seemed to age visibly more since the fall of Earth than she had over any other time. He remembered how she was, bright and pretty, looking like a ray of sunshine out in the deep, cold of space. He wondered if the sunshine would ever come back. He wondered if rescuing her father would be enough.

Sam sighed and rose from the seat. "Well, I assume that at current course and speed, we may overtake the convoy's next logical pit-stop. I'm going down to the galley to grab a snack. Want something?"

"I'll wait for dinner."

"Vala's cooking."

"Oh, dear god," Mitchell groaned and pressed the heel of his hands to his eyes, then slid his hands down to rub his face.

"I'll take that as a 'yes, get me a snack too.'" Sam smiled at him as he peeped past his fingers. For the most infinitesimal of seconds, the sunshine was back, but then she turned and was gone.

Mitchell sighed. Just another day in chez Buick.  
~*~

Daniel once taught him a Tau'ri word: karma. Teal'c understood karma. He knew the concept had a name in every language and culture, possibly over several galaxies. Karma was like dinner that evening. Vala had served up something that had caused other members of the group to moan and grumble. Teal'c had eaten it, accepting it for what it was. He would always eat what was sat before him when it was all he had to keep his body nourished, and he would not waste time on complaints. Needless to say, he did agree with O'Neill's assessment that the casserole tasted like it was made with a rubber chicken. He merely nodded in agreement and continued to eat.

Karma was not a remarkable concept. Perhaps it was that he served a false god for so long that his karma brought him to this place. His fate was sealed with the Tau'ri, even now that the System Lords were all but extinct. His wife was long dead, as was his son. The battles continued. What was left of the Jaffa, like most others who stood against the Ori, were scattered, weak little pockets of resistance, trying. Always trying; never giving up their hard won freedom.

Kelnorim no longer brought the serenity it once had.. How still and quiet it had been in his little room in Cheyenne Mountain.

Samantha Carter came in. She rarely disturbed him once he stared the cycle. He was aware of her, accepting the comfort of her presence in the room as she moved about, settling, fixing, unwinding. Finally she settled at his back, curling in a ball to sleep like the Tau'ri pets they called cats.

"It will be four days until the next planet-fall," Teal'c said. In a manner of speaking, it was his way of telling her that his Kelnorim was not so deep that it excluded her. He was willing to talk if that was what she needed.

"They had a two day head start and far better ships. Only thing I suppose we will find are rumors," she replied and then sighed heavily.

"You must not despair."

Samantha didn't answer, but Teal'c knew the quality of the silence behind him. She wouldn't speak of her fears unless he prompted her. He wished she would join him in Kelnorim. It seemed to refresh her far more than anyone else of the Tau'ri he taught it to. Perhaps Samantha was just too tired. There were far too many cares to consider.

Samantha's breathing evened out to a slow, steady rhythm. Teal'c listened to it, focusing on it and on the light of the single candle he allowed himself on board the ship. He slipped down into himself to commune with his own soul. It was a lonely place now that the symbiote was gone: his friend and his enemy. He made a new choice once that option had been taken from him. Karma.

Much later, he was disturbed from the deepest part of Kelnorim, coming back quickly to awareness. There was restless movement at his back and soft, sighing moans. Samantha was having disturbing dreams. Carefully, he pulled her over, positioning her so that her head rested on his lap. She barely woke up before she settled again against him into a deep, calm sleep. Tenderly, he stroked back the silk-fine, short blonde hair and watched over her with solemn and loving regard. His soul was not so lonely.  
~*~

She never took it to heart. She didn't have time or patience for that. She had spent most of her life living by her wits. When they hit her with the off-handed snide comment, she rolled with it. She figured there was probably still a little part inside of each of them that did not trust her. She could actually see why.

Yes, at first, her allegiance had seemed ambiguous at best, but she had proved herself. There were things she wanted that they wanted too, and those things were just important enough to make her appear a little more noble than maybe she actually was.

The general was under foot in the kitchen, not that she minded much. He took dishes and plates from her and proceeded to rinse and load them in the dishwasher. Vala sighed, leaning against a counter. At the table, Daniel lingered over coffee.

Coffee, the drink the Tau'ri prized so well that they brought it with them to cultivate on three different planets. Carefully contained on small stretches of green mountainous regions, the earth plants grew under alien suns, the last plants to survive from a dead world.

These people had lost their home. Vala understood that. She knew loss. When one played dangerous games, sometimes one lost. Sometimes one lost big, but she also knew how to turn it into opportunity. That was one of the reasons why they still needed her.

The general passed her carrying the carafe of coffee. He offered to pour her a mug as he passed. She shook her head, and he continued past. She watched him unconsciously refill Daniel's mug. Daniel drank without skipping a beat. He didn't add anything to his coffee the way Cam and Sam did. He just drank it straight, black, and hot. Sam had told her that Daniel was an addict. Coffee was a mild stimulant much like the teas they made on that planet were everyone bowed a lot and looked like they needed a good night's sleep. When did that planet fall to the Ori? It went pretty darn fast. They all did.

The general sat a mug down next to Daniel's and poured. Sitting the carafe on the table, he took his seat beside Daniel. The general added nothing to his coffee as well. He didn't seem like a black coffee man when she first met him, and she had to wonder when he stopped adding the sweeteners and milk. Jack was a fascinating man, really; perhaps even more fascinating than Daniel, in a way. He was resilient in a manner that Vala understood and respected. He cut through the niceties and the etiquette to get to the heart of people, but that didn't mean he couldn't stand on the highest civility. He was what he was.

She was never foolish enough to allow his appearance to deceive her. His sliver hair and careworn face made him appear older than he was. Jack was a canny warrior. He was good at utilizing what little he had. He took nothing for granted.

Daniel, on the other hand, he had been an open book when she met him, full of noble ideals and endless hopes. He was a rarity in this galaxy: a genuinely kind person. He had believed in the decency of people. It was this, his candor, and his ability to still see reality beyond the hope-tint of his character that had drawn her to him. Perhaps it was an instinct for an easy mark, or perhaps it was true interest in the attractive qualities of noble ideals.

Daniel was a realist, but at heart, he was still a scholar, seeking to learn and understand. Pickings were slim these days for learning and understanding. Knowing that, he moved into place at the general's side, his trusted companion.

That was when Vala realized that although she was interested in the man, Daniel would never be all that interested in her. His focus turned to Jack O'Neill, and he would follow his command to his dying day. The intensity of Daniel's loyalty was not all that shocking. When a man who had lived for an art was deprived of it, but was given something else suitable to him to take its place, it stood to reason that he would pour his passion into his proxy and be content. Daniel Jackson was no longer a scholar. He was Jack O'Neill's right-hand man.

Vala turned to the cupboard and retrieved a mug. She then reached for the carafe on the table.

"I thought you didn't want any." The general frowned, confused.

After filling the cup, she leaned in to pour in sweetener. "Oh… no, this is for Cameron." She smiled at the two men silently commiserating over cups of scalding, bitter stimulant. She then left them to it and headed towards the bridge.  
~*~

Daniel often hugged his mug to him as if it were as precious as a chalice of ambrosia. Jack contemplated the man as he contemplated his coffee. It was not hard to see that Daniel was thinking, gathering his thought and putting all his ducks in a row. Jack only wondered what he had in mind.

In another place and time, Jack would have headed for the hills. Daniel thinking meant he was just steps away from rambling on some heady subject matter pertaining to ancient civilizations, myths and legends, and the scribbles they left of broken bits of clay pots. All very fascinating when one is watching the history channel at 2:30 AM while eating cold pizza, but not necessarily what one wants to spend the evening discussing.

These days, Daniel rarely discussed artifacts and age-old cultures. How someone else lived yesterday seemed unimportant when you were constantly working on how to stay alive today… Unless those long dead bastards had something they could use, some lesson to be learned.

Jack waited. Whatever Daniel was thinking, he was sure Daniel would be soon expressing. His lips pursed in an intense and thoughtful pout, his forehead wrinkled in deep concentration, Daniel was a beautiful man. Long, dark lashes shaded large blue eyes that looked like the bright, glass eyes of a china doll. Daniel's eyes looked unreal, too good to be true. Jack again wondered what his parents had looked like in person. He had seen the photos, but always something was lost in the translation. All that Jack knew was that when he had seen one of the pictures, Jack recognized the eyes smiling for the camera in the face of Daniel's mother: a beautiful woman who gave birth to a beautiful man.

Daniel slowly looked up at him. "We can't free Jacob. Why are we…"

"Reconnaissance, Daniel." Jack stopped him before he could finish the thought. "We have to look. We have to see to be certain that we can't. Never call the game without looking at the playing field."

Daniel looked back down at his coffee. "I saw the message you got from Heath Station. They don't even want us to attempt it."

"They don't have a fucking clue."

"They know that the ship is with a convoy 20 ships strong and are in constant contact across the expanse using the space-born gates. They could jump any time and we wouldn't be able to follow."

"That's why we have to get a look at them now," Jack looked hard at Daniel who looked back up meeting his eyes. "Look, this isn't some hopeless rescue mission. That comes later. Right now, we need to assess. One thing at a time... and before you begin: no, this isn't to just keep Carter from going insane, and yes, 'we don't leave our people behind' still applies."

Then Daniel's brow un-creased slightly and he smiled a small brief smile as he looked at Jack. Daniel understood. He just wanted to make sure Jack understood. Silly as that sounded, Daniel often poked and prodded Jack with a metaphorical finger to make sure they were on the same page of the gallantry manual: Heroic Deeds are Us.

"Ready for bed?" Jack asked softly.

"You?" Daniel countered.  
~*~

They shared the small quarters quite well. It wasn't long until their stuff started blending. The picture of Sha're sat next to the small school picture of Charlie. A handkerchief, one sock, a nearly empty tube of K-Y gel, nail clippers, a pair of frayed, navy-blue, fingerless mitts, scissors, they sat on the bedside table, an amalgam of both men's possessions, used indiscriminately between them.

It had been an amazing moment in Jack's life when he realized that he was free from the personal restrictions imposed upon him by the United States Air Force. He stood on top of the tallest structure on Chulak and shouted, "I love you, Daniel Jackson!"

It had blown not only Daniel away, but Carter as well. Teal'c had not been so surprised. That had been an interesting evening. He had gotten exceptionally drunk on the rice and sugar liquor they served at the SG base canteen on the planet and sang the Billy Joel song "Captain Jack." After that, it had been all Verdi all night… or so he had been told.

He had only wished he could have saved Hammond and Landry and so many other good people who had been there when he had not. If he had been there, they could have at least resisted a little better. No one controlled the Ancient's control chair better than he did.

But no, he couldn't give up the fun, and every chance he could, he went gallivanting off through the gate. So he wasn't there when the Ori cruisers had arrived and started ripping the planet's atmosphere off and decimating the land.

It was better not to think of it. He tried nightly not to remember. His hands gripping tightly to Daniel and his leg wrapped firmly about his thighs, Jack buried his face in Daniel's shoulder; his teeth nipping the soft skin there as he tried not to cry out. Instead he grunted like a rutting caveman, pushing himself deeply inside Daniel, as they lay on their sides in their narrow bed. And Daniel let him. That thought never ceased to amaze Jack.

No foreplay, just lubricant and fucking. It was so straightforward, it almost appeared loveless, but he did love Daniel. He loved him so very deeply and completely that Jack shivered as Daniel held him tight afterwards. Daniel pressed him close, shushing him and comforting him; kissing away the silent tears. The words "I love you" flowed between them, well meant and solid. They were special words, and Jack could feel complete when Daniel turned him to his stomach and took him hard and fast, whispering the words over and over again until his body melted under the fugue sensation of possession and love.

"Never stop, Danny."

"Love you…"


	2. Chapter 2

When she awoke, Teal'c was already up and out. He was on the bridge, taking his watch at the helm. Mitchell would sleep through breakfast as usual. That didn't matter. Who could get excited over cold cereal without milk? The boys on Genoua or P3X-475 had gifted them with one of their bulk crates of frosted flakes. They did have powdered milk to go with it, but Mitchell and the general, between the two of them, decimated that supply within the first three weeks. There was still water and Tang, and although she couldn't wrap her head around how Daniel could pour the sorry excuse for orange drink over his cereal, even she recognized the fact that anything was better than nothing in some cases. This was not one of them. Sam ate her cereal dry.

Vala was already in the galley common area, drinking tea and eating toast. Sam smiled her good morning to her.

"Tea or coffee?" Vala asked. "I have more tea." She pointed with her toast to a sliver carafe sitting on a warmed pad. "I didn't dare try coffee again."

Sam chuckled lightly. Vala hadn't learned the fine art of making coffee. She kept trying to use the instructions on the side of the can. Everyone knew that the instructions only show you how to make a weak, half-assed cup of coffee. Sam started the process of making real-honest-injun-Air-Force-Issue coffee, the kind that made the general smile and made Daniel open his eyes just a crack.

Vala was an interesting creature, and Sam still could not totally bring herself to trust her the way she trusted the others on her team. However, she recognized the woman's usefulness, and she believed in her sincerity when she placed her allegiance with them. Sam only questioned her ethics.

Vala was a professional liar, and she was damn good at what she did. Sam was not a liar. Sam had lied before in the name of duty, and, even personally, she had spilled little white lies to save someone else's dignity or to reduce their worry. But when it was important, the truth always came to her lips. She couldn't stop it. The only thing that could was a direct order, and usually then that only brought silence.

Vala could lie and lie so well, tangling people in a web of deceit until they hardly knew which end was up. It didn't matter; her lies were working for them now. Sam accepted that, but she still kept her good eye on the woman.

"You need help with the drive manifold today?" Vala asked.

Sam looked at her and smiled. "You read my mind."

"Wasn't hard," Vala sighed. "After Jack pushed a body through a turbine, it sounded like it was time to check the internal valves for… gunk." She finished the sentence with a brief grimace.

Sam's smile got wider, and she nodded. "We can start after breakfast if that's okay."

"Sure." Vala scooted out of her chair leaving her toast crust on a plate. She took her mug over to the carafe on the warmer. "Figure none of the other slugs in this boat are about to help."

"It's been a long week," Sam said softly. She flinched slightly when Vala's hand fell lightly on her shoulder and squeezed. She looked as if she would say something but didn't. Instead they looked at each other, light and dark. Both women were like queens on opposite ends of the chessboard somehow drawn together instead to fight a common foe.

Sam was grateful that Vala had changed her mind on voicing her sympathy and support about Jacob. Sam didn't need to hear it any more. Perhaps Vala had sensed that. Sam was glad for the touch, all the same. It showed that she was thinking about her. That was all she asked for.

The coffee started simmering forth from the makeshift coffee maker, sending the strong scent thought the room. Sam knew it wouldn't be long, and before she could finish the thought, Daniel shuffled in, his eyes half lidded. He sat down at the table, his hands cupped before him. The space between his hands was the place where the coffee mug was to be inserted. Everyone knew the routine. Sam inserted the mug and Vala poured the coffee.  
~*~

Vala was considering soup for lunch. Tomato soup was very good, it came in a can, and it was simple. Daniel always put curry powder into his. It was actually very tasty that way. After a while, everyone was passing about the curry powder when tomato soup was on the table. How much was used was varying to each person's taste. Vala noticed that Sam liked lots of curry, almost as much as Daniel.

Jack went easy on the curry, but enjoyed it just the same. Teal'c and Cameron were moderate curry users. Vala loved the sharp, tangy taste and followed Sam and Daniel down to curry oblivion where a person's taste buds were over run by the forces of spicy goodness.

It was enough to start her mouth watering, and while she was busy doing the absolutely mindless task of pulling particle emitters and cleaning the glass probe ends, it seemed okay to daydream ahead to lunch. The main stardrive was not off line, just the atmospheric thrust nacelles. Everything seemed okay. Lunch was sounding better and better…

"Vala!"

Sam's call shocked her mostly because of the wary sound of her voice, like she was seeing something that she didn't like and now she wanted Vala to see it, too. Vala replaced the probe end carefully and picked her way around the long accelerator shaft of the cold fusion engine to where Sam stood holding a small scanpad.

"This is weird."

"Hm?" Vala came to look over Sam's shoulder. The pad was showing dangerous spikes in dark matter events happening over the energy parabola. That was bad. If the line of symmetry was not kept, the fusion reaction could implode. Very bad for business, that prospect.

"Shouldn't we take the main engine off line?"

"I don't know if that will help," Sam muttered as she worked the math in her head as quickly as possible.

"Can't hurt." Vala shrugged as Sam looked up at her. Her single blue eye blinked then she put down the pad to pull the main engines off line. Within moments, Teal'c's calm voice floated down to them over the ships com system.

"Samantha, the main engines have been taken off line. Is there a problem?"

"I've got some really erratic energy readings in her. We need to figure out why. We thought it would probably be better to pull down the mains." Sam mopped her brow and waited for the obvious reply.

"Do you require assistance?"

"I've got Vala here with me. We can figure this out. Thanks, Teal'c," she said smiling softly at the sound of his harmonious and serene voice.

The next voice wasn't so serene. "Carter? Ship's not moving! Carter? Why is our ship not moving?"

"Slight problem with the main engines, Sir. We're working on it."

"What kinda problem?" the general sounded particularly peevish today.

"We don't completely know yet. We thought it would be a good idea to power down for a second to see what was going on."

"Keep me in the loop."

"Yes, Sir."

"Ah, Sam?" Vala had in the meantime opened the outer core skin to look in at the main chamber, all the while listening to the ship's engineer explain herself to just about everyone on the ship who was awake enough to look out a window and see that they had stopped moving. That was when Vala saw movement where there should not have been.

"Sam?"

Sam turned to her with a frown. "What?"

"There is someone in there!"

Sam peered through the portal with a look that was a mixture of shock and exasperation. She too saw what looked like a human body, moving about in the reactor core. She quickly lifted her pad.

"Levels have stabilized. No radiation. It's safe," she said. "Whoever is in there didn't get irradiated."

"You don't suppose it's turbine-boy?" Vala said, her face crinkling in disgust.

"I doubt it," Sam replied. "He was shot out the back of the starboard turbine. How the hell would he find his way up to the reactor?"

"Fuel lines?" Vala shrugged.

"Whoever is in there is alive. I'd say a stowaway, but I'd like to know how he survived at least twelve hours in a cold-fusion reactor core."

Vala shrugged again.

"Well, we better get him out of there. Get your gun."

They reserved the zat guns for raids and missions. They didn't have many of them and the few they had, renewing the power was often a nearly impossible chore. No, for common thieves and stow-aways, the general had ordered them not to use the zats. For something like this, a Berretta sidearm was just right. Shoot first; ask questions later. Vala returned to the engine room just as Sam was finishing apprising the general on the situation.

"I'm coming down there, Carter. Don't do a thing 'til I get there."

"Yes, Sir." Sam turned off the com system and sighed. "Like that'll make a difference."

"You are so insubordinate these days." Vala smiled as she handed Sam a Berretta.

Sam just glared at Vala with her good eye.

Just about then, a hand pounded the porthole; a face appeared. It was a face that stopped all conversation and nearly made Vala choke in shock. Sam began to pull back access locks and pull open heavy doors. Vala helped her by yanking on the last five-inch thick door to the reaction chamber.

"Daniel!" Sam shouted as he fell into her arms. He looked dazed and his face was red like windburn. Vala just hoped it wasn't excessive gamma radiation burn. It would kill the general to lose him like that again.

Then Vala really looked Daniel over as he gasped to a halt on the ground, still in Sam's arms. He was wearing BDUs.

Daniel had not worn BDUs since the fall of Serri, the Beta Site. There was something terribly different about Daniel and it wasn't just what he was wearing. Daniel was all wrong.

"Daniel! What the holy fucking hannah were you doing in there?" Sam scolded.

"Sam?" Daniel looked up at her and his eyes went round in surprise and his flush face paled. "My god, Sam!"

"What the! Carter! Fer cryin' out loud! I told you to wait!" The general roared. Just behind him stood Daniel Jackson wearing his ratty, old cream color sweater and jeans.

Daniel in BDUs and Daniel in sweater and jeans. For a second Sam looked like a fish out of water as she looked between the two of them. Vala swallowed just as stunned, but she did make sure she caught a glimpse of Sweater Daniel's face as he got a load of BDU Daniel. He seemed to lock up in horror, his eyes rounder than Sam's single eye.

"Whoa," was all the general said.  
~*~

"I really am Dr. Daniel Jackson."

The BDU Daniel sat at the common table holding a cup of coffee the way every Daniel Jackson in every universe probably did. The general's intense stare didn't seem to faze him, nor did Mitchell's open mouth surprise. Teal'c watched him warily as did Vala. Daniel just watched him with a new excitement in his eyes, or perhaps it was not so new. No, it wasn't new at all. Sam had seen this excitement before in Daniel's face. She just hadn't seen it in years.

Sam shrugged and looked to the general. "It's possible. The cold fusion reactor does almost the same thing a Zero Point Module does on a smaller and different scale. Under the correct circumstances particles can be exchanged across a bridge between different universes. That would explain the spikes in the parabola in our power output. Each spike would represent a door opening and closing."

"So you are saying he used our reactor like a quantum mirror?" the general glared harder at the man.

"Something like that. I assume he couldn't have actually used the mirror, beings ours was destroyed when Earth was destroyed…"

"What? What was that?" BDU Daniel actually looked paler than he did before in the engine room.

"I take it Earth is just peachy back where you come from." The general gave the man a mocking smile.

"Your Earth was destroyed?"

"Ah, yes," Daniel answered BDU Daniel when it appeared no one else would. "Seven Ori mother ships came. They decimated the earth. Nothing was left…"

"It really is the third rock from the sun now," the general added. Daniel frowned at him.

"How did you get here?" Daniel asked.

BDU Daniel sat up a little straighter. "It was a quantum mirror actually, but it was an accident. I didn't intend to activate it. I was only looking for clues to help us find Merlin's weapon."

"You're still looking for it," Daniel said softly, and it seemed to Sam that the light had been snuffed out of his eyes.

"Yes," BDU Daniel looked at his counterpart. "Aren't you?"

"It doesn't exist."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"We looked… it doesn't exist." Daniel stood from the table as if to leave.

"Maybe that is where our paths diverged," BDU Daniel speculated.

Daniel spun back on him looking about as angry as Sam had ever seen him. "Has it ever occurred to you that our paths didn't create the divergence?"

BDU Daniel blinked.

"When did the Ori come to your Earth?" Daniel asked. "How did you fight them?"

"We… they haven't made it to earth… not yet."

"They came after the first supergate at Kallana." Daniel explained.

BDU Daniel looked over at the general.

"I was on the Alpha site at the time."

"The warhead didn't work," Sam added.

"No, it didn't in my universe either." BDU Daniel confessed. "Vala…"

"She did here, too." Mitchell finally spoke up. "They still came. They fooled us. They had two sites."

"Two?" BDU Daniel looked amazed.

"I guess our Ori's ingenuity was the divergence," Vala said pleasantly.

"They kicked our sorry asses. Left us scattered worse than the Tok'ra." Daniel poured BDU Daniel more coffee. "Why are you really here, Daniel?" Daniel stared down intently into his counterpart's eyes. The general looked a little stunned at their Daniel.

Daniel went on to explain. "You knew how the mirror worked. You didn't make a mistake. The control device was lost. How did you do this?"

BDU Daniel didn't answer; he sort of looked away, his face flushing with emotion and his jaw tightening.

"You disobeyed orders." Daniel said softly. "Sometimes you are just too zealous, you realize that?"

"I had almost everything. I'm close." BDU Daniel said looking back up at Daniel.

"Were does the rest of SGC think you are?"

"In England," BDU Daniel admitted. "We were on a week stand down. General Landry arranged a retreat for us."

"You didn't go." Daniel said.

"No," BDU Daniel said with a sigh. "I had all the literature I needed at my fingertips. What I needed was to see if someone else had found it."

"That would be cheating, I think," Cam Mitchell piped in. Sam frowned at him. She wanted to hear this amazing story of another Daniel's duplicity. She knew Daniel was a zealot when he was certain he was right. She just didn't know how far he would go. Well, that was not actually true. She knew that he would never harm or betray his team. Daniel was a good man.

"So you looked," Daniel prompted. "You opened the mirror and looked."

BDU Daniel looked contrite and strained at the same time. "Yes," he replied. "Sam told me how to find the main controls in the mirror. I just wanted to look. I never intended to enter any of the realities."

"He shouldn't be here," Sam finally said, looking to the general and then to Daniel. "We don't have a mirror."

"I didn't see anything when I hit your reality, just white light. I thought it was a malfunction and I reached out to adjust the internal controls…"

"You must have accidentally touched the mirror's surface," Teal'c said.

"And wound up in the core of our reactor," Vala added. "That could explain the light."

"Carter?" The general looked to her.

"Ah… well… as I said before, the bridge between universes could have been established. Under the correct circumstances particles can be exchanged across a bridge in the reaction. The mirror would have been point A and the reactor core would have been point B… instead of a second point in the mirror's reality."

"This is really gonna give me a headache," the general complained.

"Well, Sir, we ought to start on finding out if we can get him home," Sam warned.

"I know," the general said with a pained look. "Forty-eight hours, and yadda yadda, Daniels start dissolving."

"Yes." Sam looked gravely at their own Daniel.

"If you don't mind," BDU Daniel said carefully. "I'd like a chance to speak with each of you. I think there is knowledge we can share that may be mutually beneficial."

The general looked him over sharply. "You can talk all you want. If my people want to talk back, that's up to them. They know how to draw the line."

That was blatant and BDU Daniel got it, Sam could tell just by the way his spine stiffened. He wasn't use to a Jack O'Neill that didn't trust him.


	3. Chapter 3

They live in this space ship, and they look as defeated as they claim they were. Daniel wondered if it could be that their Ori really were one consequential fraction more canny than in his own reality? Could the divergence really be there?

"I never considered how selfishly we view our own places in our universes," their Sam Carter told Daniel. "The idea that we are totally masters of our own destiny is really an awful illusion." She absently rubbed her eye patch.

"If I may ask…" Daniel began hesitantly.

"Oh." She looked up at him and smiled. "Where's the other eye?"

Daniel smiled at her smile and noted how her smile was not the same smile of the Samantha Carter he knew, there was a sadness in that smile that he wonder was the result of the eye patch. Just below the patch, running from under it to about mid cheekbone, was a thin pale scar that looked like the stain of a teardrop.

"I lost it in the battle for the Alpha Site," she finally said. We arrived through the gate after we lost contact with Earth. It's standard procedure… as you know.

"While we were there, Bra'tac got word to us what had happened to earth, and what was happening around the galaxy. It wasn't long before they came for us." Sam sighed, looking away. "I guess the Ori felt it was necessary to remove the Tau'ri, the Jaffa, and the Tok'ra in order to subjugate the rest of the galaxy. They pretty much dealt with the remaining Goa'uld as well. There are no more system lords as we know of.

"The battle lasted three days and ended with us retreating in different directions to protect our numbers from decimation. I took a small piece of shrapnel in my face while I was trying to hold the gate for our people's retreat. Teal'c and Daniel pulled me to safety. There wasn't any place we could go to get proper medical help. I had to be dealt with by battlefield aid. The eye is actually still there. It's just scarred over and… well, useless."

"I'm sorry," Daniel said softly.

Sam smiled again a little more brightly. "Don't be. I still have one good eye left."

There was an awkward silence as Daniel considered this melancholy version of Sam Carter. Still trying to see the glass as half full, but as always moving through reality with her eyes and mind wide open. (Well at least her remaining eye was wide open.) She was Sam, but she was different, sitting there looking waif-like in the oversize sweatshirt that she said she traded for with a Marine from the Alpha Site. She did look smaller in a way, maybe just leaner. Daniel was certain she was honed down to pure muscle and force of will, like a sword folded a thousand times in the flames.

"Um… I really ought to get back to work in the reactor," she said contritely. "I'm pretty sure I can recreate the event that opened the bridge between realities, but it's gonna take time to get it all right so I don't wind up imploding our reactor into a very small black hole."

"Yes," Daniel said. "Of course."  
~*~

The coffee maker was an interesting contraption. It was obviously based upon the current coffee maker technology, but it was clearly a homemade setup. The carafe was metal. A thin cloth that had been probably white once-upon-a-time, served as the filter. The "filter" was held in place by four paperclips in a metal coffee can cut in half and propped with what could have been an unbent coat hanger over a warmer plate. Obviously, the water was warmed on the plate first and then poured into the filter with grounds.

"I could make you tea," Vala said. "You better let Cameron make the coffee." She looked over her shoulder at Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell. Mitchell looked up at the mention of his name and the looked over at Daniel.

Their eyes met. Daniel noticed, as he always did, the small, faint freckles on the man's nose that made him appear boyish. His wide-eyed expressions also contributed to this aspect.

The Cameron Mitchell he knew in his reality respected him well enough, but Daniel always suspected that he thought that Daniel was perhaps a few tacos shy of a grande meal. This Cameron just looked at him. He stared at him as if he would soon perform tricks.

There was nothing in his gaze, and that shocked Daniel. He was use to feeling a force of spirit in Cameron's eyes, a determination, if you will. There was nothing there; just life. The lights were on, and someone was home, but who the hell cared. Daniel was certain he'd never seen Mitchell like this. He had seen him dog-tired and in pain. He had seen him frustrated and sulky, but he had never seen him completely apathetic. And this apathy was strange. It was like watching a man walking in a dream or in a drug-induced daze, and Daniel had to wonder if there were drugs involved.

"You want coffee?" Mitchell asked.

"Uh… sure."

Mitchell lifted himself from the seat like a tired man, forcing his muscles to motivate from sheer force of will. Maybe he was just tired, but to Daniel's mind, it looked more like a Cameron Mitchell that was more than a little defeated. That was in itself a wrong concept.

He watched the man prepare the coffee, pouring water from a large blue cooler bottle into the carafe and then starting the warming process while putting grounds into the homemade filter system. The warmer took less than a minute to get the water boiling hot. Mitchell dumped the whole carafe in while placing another empty carafe under the drip to catch the brewed coffee.

"How long have you been out here… like this?" Daniel found himself asking.

Mitchell sighed, but, then again, everything he did was like a little, tired sigh. He moved like a perpetual, weary sigh.

"Over a year now," Mitchell said casually. "Doesn't seem so long when you spend most of the time floating through space, looking for a non-hostile place to land."

"How much have the Ori taken?"

"Lots," Vala volunteered, and then snorted at Daniel's troubled expression.

Mitchell just sighed again. "There is a Prior on just about every planet that is inhabited and has a working stargate. The level of control on each planet depends. There is still some resistance."

"You are part of the resistance," Daniel said, meaning all of them in the ship.

"Yep," Mitchell replied, watching as the coffee trickled down into the carafe.

"We run weapons, help in raids, move supplies and intel," Vala added.

"We do what we can," Mitchell added, looking pointedly at Vala. The woman closed her mouth quickly with a perplexed stare at Mitchell.

Daniel remembered Jack's words earlier. He had basically told his people to be careful what they told him. He didn't trust his story, and really, why should he? They have been up against the victorious Ori for over a year. Heaven knew, even less sophisticated groups have slipped doppelgangers past to compromise an enemy.

Daniel looked over at Vala and wondered if this was the same woman he had met on board the Prometheus and had been literally shackled to for longer than he cared to remember.

"What?" she said, and Daniel realized he was staring. He then decided the honesty couldn't do any harm at this point.

"Did you happen to have a baby?"

"Huh?" She grimaced at him.

"Guess not." Daniel scratched behind his ear and looked away from her. He thought to ask how she managed to get back among SG1 after Kallana, but he figured, if Kallana had been a diversion for a secondary site, then getting out was probably not so problematic. The Ori had probably shifted their priorities to the gate that had been successfully opened.

The coffee stream turned to a trickle and then a drip. Mitchell pulled down two mismatched mugs from a galley cupboard. He put sugar into only one mug but poured the strong smelling coffee into both. He pushed the straight black brew Daniel's way. Daniel took a sip.

It was very decent for coffee made with a cotton rag in an old coffee can as a filter.

"Not bad," Daniel nodded.

"We have all the modern conveniences here," Mitchell said waving his mug to encompass the whole of the ship. "Ship has three crew cabins all with hot and cold running water."

"Just three?"

"Yeah," Mitchell said and took a slow sip of coffee. "We share."

"Okay," Daniel nodded comprehending. "I guess I'll need to bunk with a pair of you tonight. Which ever guys room can…"

"Huh?" Mitchell interrupted, looking at Daniel, his brows drawing together. "No," he continued with a frown. "WE share." He gestured between himself and Vala with his coffee mug.

"Oh…"  
~*~

It had been a shock at first, but then Daniel had seen the reason behind it. Vala and Mitchell seemed sort of perversely cute together. She probably pushed him around and he took it with all the machismo and bravado he could muster under the circumstances. No wonder he looked so defeated. It was practically perfect.

Cam Mitchell suggested he speak with the general about sleeping arrangements if he needed them for the forty-eight-hour window he had to exist in this universe. That had been a bit easier said than done, as Daniel, even with directions from Vala who claimed to be able to sleep walk through the ship without a single misstep. They couldn't come with him for some reason that they both seemed to disagree on, but Daniel suspected it was apathy and a fear of dealing with an irate Jack O'Neill. He could understand those reasons very well. Daniel was left wandering the cool metal halls of the ship.

The lighting in the forward sections was blue and violet. The fixtures were probably UV correct to help human creatures produce vitamin D and process calcium. The galley lights were more yellow and warm. It was a comforting light that reminded one of a kitchen in an old house, rich and golden, like the glow of cook fires. He wondered if such color schemes were so diversely cross cultural that a Tollan ship would have such things that would soothe any other human, Tau'ri or otherwise. He had seen other ships in his time, but he had never been on this class of space cruiser. This was a common freight vessel. It was nothing like the big and ornate mother ships of the Ori or the Goa'uld, nor were they like the sparse and utilitarian ancient vessels.

The passageways were far from ascetically pleasing, and they were only comfortable to move through by the slightest margin. They were serviceable. The floors were corrugated metal. The walls were corrugated metal. The ceilings were corrugated metal with evenly spaced light bars at the crease between wall and ceilings. The passages moved at angles about the ship, jerking him about the innards of the whole of it, up metal stairs and across metal catwalks. The cargo hold was dim. No one was there.

There wasn't much in the wide cargo hold. The only lighting was the emergency lighting that was enough to illuminate all the major spaces, but left wide pockets of shadows that could hide just about anything. Daniel didn't linger.

He was heading back towards the galley when he saw them. They stood too close to each other, talking in soft tones. Daniel stepped back a bit, letting the porthole access in the bulkhead conceal him in its imperfect shadows.

Jack looked at his Daniel and scowled. Daniel, wearing the cream colored sweater, frayed at the cuffs and with small unraveled holes on the sides and sleeves, frowned back. They spoke softly, but Daniel could hear most of what they were saying.

"You're avoiding him."

"Not necessarily," that universe's Daniel replied. "I'll talk to him. I just need time to put my thoughts together."

"That's a first," Jack snorted in amusement.

Daniel snorted impatiently. "Come on, Jack. I remember how unnerved you were to see the other Jack O'Neill from another universe. You know this isn't easy."

"I know," Jack said kindly, patiently. "It's not fun to see where you could have been sometimes."

"I feel like a loser…"

"Hey," Jack cut him off and then there was silence accented with soft wet sounds that sounded like kisses. Daniel peered out from around the porthole to look.

"Quit it," Jack said. He was holding Daniel's face tenderly between his hands and their foreheads rested against each other. "You are not a loser. You did everything you could. We all did."

Daniel watched as his shabby-sweatered counterpart looked down, clearly doubting Jack's words and angry at the cosmic irony of the situation. Here he was on this ship, his face held by the man of his deepest desires and yet his world was in a shambles. It had to be his fault somehow.

Then Jack's thumb rubbed slowly across his lower lip, a gesture so intimate and loving, that Daniel barely caught himself gasping aloud and blowing his cover. Shabby Daniel looked up, and Daniel, even from his cover, could see the smoldering desire burning in his eyes, behind his wire frame glasses. He lifted his hands to cup Jack's face in return, his fingers smoothing over the hard lines in Jack's cheeks and tracing the craggy features of a man who had lived through too much.

They looked into each other's eyes, brown into blue, and smoothed each others lips, Jack with only a single thumb and Daniel with two fingers touching in light reverence. At last, Jack pulled Daniel close again and there lips met in sweet, wet, kisses, that Daniel could clearly see involved a liberal amount of tongue.

It was long and slow and beautiful in an isolated and lonely way. Daniel watched, feeling the burn of sheer desire warming him low in his belly and loins, knowing that what he wanted would never be. This Daniel had much more than he ever dreamed, and he could easily see trading his world for a chance at that love.

No, he couldn't think that way. Nothing was worth the lives of billions of people. Oh, but it was love. He could see it in the way they touched. He could hear it in every soft, sighed breath.

Jack pulled away slightly and whispered something that couldn't be heard from where Daniel hid. His lips forming the words produce more sound that carried. The Shabby Daniel nodded and lowered his eyes briefly. Then, just with the slightest tilt of his head, reinitiated the kissing. These kisses were more demanding, more fierce. It took Daniel's breath away to watch.

Jack moaned into the kiss, his arms going about his Daniel. He was so beautiful when he was being kissed. He looked so gentle and vulnerable, his eyes closed and his hard features relaxed. A hand slowly inserted itself under the fraying knit at the waistline of the sweater. Jack's hand moved so very gradually across the small of his Daniel's back. Tender strokes on soft skin, slow passion filling the very air around them. Jack was pressed to a bulkhead by his Daniel, who fell on him with rapacious desire. He allowed himself to be manhandled, pressed back and kissed breathless.

The air of the corridor burned with their need. It was a palatable haze and heat. Daniel felt he could warm his hands against their fire if he tried. Once more Jack pulled back, but his Daniel was reluctant to give up what he had laid claimed to. With a soft groan, Jack pushed Shabby Daniel gently back, but he would not relent so easily and kept up a tiny erotic assault, nipping and sucking on the looser skin at Jack's neck.

"We have work to do." Jack's voice was a throaty whisper that was slightly breathless and sensual all at once. His eyes were half lidded as he tried to stave off the passion that had burned so fiercely between them not but mere moments before. One of his hands still smoothed down the warm skin beneath the sweater on Shabby Daniel's back.

"Later," was his Daniel's growled reply.

Jack chuckled briefly and rolled his eye. Then with a resolute sigh, he firmly pushed his Daniel back, holding him at arms length. Shabby Daniel flailed for only a second, but then went limp with a dramatic, comical flourish that made Jack smile again.

"How in the world did I get hooked up with a horn-dog like you?"

"Just lucky, I guess," his Daniel replied looking so intensely at Jack that the lust in his gaze was shamelessly apparent.

"C'mon." Jack tugged on his Daniel's sweater sleeve, pulling him in the direction of the galley. "Sam said she might make cookies in honor of our guest…"

Within seconds, Daniel was alone in the corridor as the two men turned a corner and headed up a flight of deck stairs. He could hear their footsteps clanging against the metal step grating. He turned back, not wanting to face the two just yet. He had much to think about.

He retraced his steps of earlier down towards the engine room of the ship. It was warmer down here near all the moving parts and mother boards humming with power. He found Teal'c putting the components for an environmental control board back together. His massive arms gleamed in the bright work lights. His brow furrowed as his large, blunt fingers performed the most precise and delicate operation.

He did not look up as Daniel entered.

"Greetings, Daniel Jackson."

"Hello… Teal'c." He cleared his throat after hearing how rough he sounded. Teal'c looked up at him then.

"Is there something I may assist you with?"

"Um…"

Daniel didn't know what to say. Maybe it was just too soon to talk to anyone else after what he had just witnessed. His mind was flooded with questions, but none of which were appropriate to ask Teal'c.

Teal'c was a very private man, and Daniel often felt uncomfortable just asking him questions that may seem slightly personal. But Teal'c was also cooperative in a very straightforward fashion. One need only ask to get the answers one needed from him.

And this Teal'c looked the same, large, noble, with a placid expression that made his entire appearance soothing. He wore his usual black tee shirt and BDU pants. He looked very much like the Teal'c he expected to find back in his own reality; constant and unchanging… except for the hair.

"What happened to the Jaffa, the remaining System Lords?" Daniel found himself asking.

Teal'c did not hesitate but launched into his tale. "The Jaffa, those that were free, like the remaining Tau'ri were scattered through out the galaxy after three major battles, one of which was for the Alpha Site. The Ori came to Chulak as well.

"The System Lords could have mounted a better defense if they had not been so divided. They were systematically vanquished. They and their Jaffa were utterly destroyed."

Daniel nodded, regarding Teal'c carefully.

"There is not much else that I can offer you that would be any use to your endeavors," he added.

Daniel blinked, facing Teal'c's solemn and detached expression. "What's the name of this ship?"

"Der fliegende Holländer."

"Jack's idea?" Daniel knew it had to be. Only Jack O'Neill…

"Indeed," Teal'c nodded gracefully, as was his practice.

Daniel cleared his throat, feeling unusually awkward under Teal'c unforgiving and solid gaze.

"Perhaps there is something you may offer me," Teal'c said smoothly, folding his hands behind his back, taking on that brick wall stance that Daniel knew so well. "My son. What can you tell me of my son, Daniel Jackson?"

Taken aback only for a moment, Daniel's mouth dropped open as he realized what Teal'c was asking. He wanted to know how Rya'c faired in Daniel's own reality.

"He's well," Daniel replied. "Rya'c is well. His wife and son are well also."

Teal'c's eyes closed slowly as if he were savoring the sweet tones from warmest of songs. "I thank you, Daniel Jackson."  
~*~

Daniel Jackson left the engineering deck after that. Sam had been quietly watching his and Teal'c's exchange from beyond a coolant exhaust conduit. She had watched the tension in Teal'c's strong hands as they had been clasped behind his back. She had long ago learned that that was where Teal'c hid his emotions.

Rya'c had died in the battle for Dakara. Teal'c had taken it badly, and Sam had known. Teal'c had been the one who had taken care of her after she had lost her eye. He was the one who had looked after her and protected her, even from her own despair. It hadn't been easy. They had been constantly on the move, taking what shelter the beleaguered people of other worlds could offer, getting what intel they could through the tight pipeline of tradesmen and traders who were still given restricted access to the gates.

Dakara had fallen and the Jaffa had been scattered to the edge of extinction, like the Tau'ri. A young Jaffa who claimed to have known Rya'c, said he was present when the young man had died nobly in battle. Teal'c had had his hands clasped behind his back on that occasion too.

Sam came up to him, slowly, carefully. She knew that Teal'c was aware of her. He always was. She touched his arm gently, marveling as she always did how small and white her hand looked against the rich, golden brown skin of his massive arm. He turned to her, looking down calmly.

"It's okay," she whispered to his chest. She didn't look up into his eyes. She knew that she would find the pain in there, the pain he carefully concealed from everyone. But they were too close now. She could find it.

A finger went under her chin, gently forcing her head up. Her single eye met his gaze evenly. She loved him. She found it hard to say those words to him without crying, and she disliked crying so much.

For a long time, he had called her Captain Carter, and then Major Carter, and then, finally, Colonel Carter. It had taken one kiss and a whispered 'I love you' to get him to finally call her Samantha. How long had she loved him? Probably all along, even while she was convincing herself that her crush on Jack was something more than it really was. When she finally let it go, Teal'c was still there.

He had cared for her tenderly. Her first month was spent in total darkness as they had to bind both eyes shut to keep her from moving her eyeballs in tandem. The shrapnel was out, but the stitches needed to heal without too much movement. They worried about infection and necrosis of the severely damaged eye. He helped her find her food, her clothing, and the facilities. His silence was a comfort and a privacy that she appreciated. He had helped her wash, his hand moving down her skin with gentle long strokes, smoothing down her flesh with a care that was both sensuous as well as therapeutic. She had so expected to feel his lips on her flesh, she had longed for it, as his hands reawakened her sexually sometimes, but he had never breached that line. She knew he never would unless he was invited. So she had invited him.

She had turned to him, naked in his strong arms and felt his face with her hand. Finding his lips, she kissed him. She wrapped her arms about his broad shoulders, clinging to his solid presence. She had told him breathlessly that she loved him; then she had cried as his arms enfolded her with such infinite care, as his lips found hers once more. Her universe that had been changing so very drastically over those past weeks had changed just a little bit more.

"Yes, Samantha," Teal'c whispered to her. "It will be 'okay' now." He pulled her into his arms.

Sam sighed as she snuggled into his broad chest, listening for the faint flutter pump of his heart. It was somewhere back there, beyond the symbiote pouch.  
~*~

Dinner with this rag-tag group of familiar faces had been somewhat quiet; not what he expected. Sam had made cookies, chocolate chip, in fact. The chocolate was hard to come by, she admitted, but not impossible. However, there had only been enough for two cookies per person. That was fine with Daniel. He had no intention of taking more than his fair share, even though the cookies were made in his honor.

His counterpart sat across from him, now wearing a thread-bare, long sleeve, dark gray thermal shirt. He watched Daniel, squinting through his round, wire-frame glasses. He probably wasn't aware that their prescription had changed slightly. The glasses that Daniel now wore were stronger.

At his counterpart's side sat Jack, sipping slowly on a cup of coffee, his hands in dirty gray fingerless mitts. It was a little cold on the ship and everyone dressed warmly, except Teal'c who seemed able to get by in only a tee shirt, pants and boots.

Everyone was polite, but they were wary in a way that made Daniel a little sad. These were not his people, his friends, his tribe. This gaunt and haunted crew, hardened by more loss than Daniel could fathom were the cold core of SG1's heart after everything else was striped away.

They were ever so polite. Sam smiled and offered him one of her own cookies after he finished his two. He refused gently. He wanted to touch her hand, to squeeze it, to offer comfort, but he knew he would be out of line in this reality. Sam had her comfort. She didn't need his pity.

Vala smiled and tried to ask questions about herself in his reality. He told her what he thought would be humorous antidotes of his Vala's exploits. What he found instead was that the more he talked, the stronger the troubled look grew in Vala's eyes, until finally she stopped asking the questions.

Jack took up the slack then, asking more general questions on information that maybe they could use: was the Atlantis expedition still alive? What were they doing now to stop the Ori?

Daniel shared readily. If anything he could tell these people could help change their condition at all, he would tell his whole life story.

But through it all, his counterpart just stared at him, contemplating him like a difficult piece of translation. Daniel knew what the other man was wondering. He was wondering which question he should ask first because his mind was so full of questions that the pressure of them stifled his voice. He could only sit there with his curiosity and watch Daniel and wonder.

After the dinner of a simple seasoned rice and Sam's cookies, Sam collected the dishes. Teal'c helped her with a silent understanding that Daniel could see. They moved together in perfect sync like a pair performing the most graceful ballet of cleaning up. Daniel watched for a minute longer than maybe he should have.

Cam Mitchell excused himself to check the controls on the bridge. Vala rose from her chair, following him, looking back only once briefly at Daniel, a pained look of guilt in her eyes. Jack and Daniel lingered.

Jack looked up at him, looked him directly in the eye. Daniel hadn't really noticed this reality's Jack before. He hadn't totally taken him in. This Jack had a back-bite of anger that hovered at the edge of his expressions. This Jack trusted no one and never let his guard down. This Jack hardly seemed like the man who would admit he loved another man, and yet Daniel had seen them in the corridor together. He had seen Jack's thumb run delicately along his counterpart's lower lip. He had watched Jack take his Daniel's kisses with softly whispered sighs and words of love. The dichotomy was strangely alluring and frightening at the same time and Daniel didn't know why.

Jack rocked back in his seat with a sigh and looked at Daniel carefully. He spoke to his Daniel, but he did not take his eyes from the Daniel across the table from him.

"I have to send a message to the cabal on Kav Ruan. Can you keep our guest entertained?"

His Daniel turned his head quickly to frown at Jack. Jack did not react. He simply stood slowly from his chair.

"I'll be back," he assured in a tone that was more a threat than a promise.

They were quiet. Sam and Teal'c who rinsed dishes just a few steps away were quiet too. After a moment, the clatter of cleaning ceased and the two excused themselves as well, Sam with a smile and Teal'c with a gracious nod to the two Daniel Jacksons sitting at the galley's common table. Then there was silence again, long, laborious, ear-splitting silence.

"I don't know what to say to you," his counterpart began.

"I know," Daniel answered.

"I don't know how we got here," that Daniel continued. "I only know that it wasn't our fault."

"That's what everyone else says," Daniel countered. "But you have still found a way to blame yourself. I know you. I *am* you."

"We called the Ori," that Daniel said.

"Yes, we did," Daniel agreed. They looked at each other long and hard and Daniel knew that their expressions were identical: Frustration and curiosity mixed. They wanted to get to the bottom of each other, but they didn't know where to begin. Daniel cleared his mind, only then did he find a logical starting point. It was what got him into this mess in the first place.

"You said Merlin's weapon didn't exist. How do you know about it? How did you become aware of it?"

His counter part sighed. "There was more to that translation than meant the eye," Daniel caught Daniel's gaze with a small knowing smile. "Merlin was an Ancient and he was all too aware of the dangers of an ascended being with its powers left unchecked."

"Yes," Daniel replied. "Morgan tried to stop him."

"The legend has it that she hid the weapon," the other Daniel continued for him. "She didn't hide it. She destroyed it."

"How do you know? Did you visit Vagon Brei?"

"We nearly died there, Sam, Mitchell, Teal'c and I."

"How did you get past…"

"The parasite? The sleeping sickness? Jack had Jacob waiting for us in a high orbit. He got us to medical facilities on In'takra in time."

"You don't know…. Wait. Jacob… is alive?"

"Yes," The other stated and then frowned. There was a long moment of silence as both Daniels absorbed the knowledge of the exchange. Finally, the counterpart shook his head, and then rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses.

"The cave was empty. There was nothing there," that Daniel argued, getting back to the business at hand.

"You haven't been to Atlantis!"

That Daniel's head jerked up hard and he frowned at Daniel. "And you have?"

"Yes," Daniel admitted softly. "I've been. I've read the records. I've talked to Morgan Le Fay."

"You spoke with an ascended Ancient?"

"Yes."

They looked at each other, the intensity increasing as each realized that there was still hope for this raged band that was all that was left to stand between the Ori and a free galaxy.

"Look," Daniel finally said to his counter part. "I haven't found it yet, but it does exist. It stands to reason that it probably exist in this reality too." He took one of his ubiquitous notebooks from a pocket in his BDUs. There was a pen stuffed between the pages. On blank pages near the back, he began to quickly scrawl down everything he knew, every clue he had found to date on the location of the weapon; including the message of the three planets from Morgan. The other Daniel was silent. He was patient, Daniel knew. He also knew he was grateful.

It took a little while as Daniel quickly sketched diagrams and star charts in a short hand he knew the other man would understand. But at last he was finished. "Here," he said as he ripped the pages from the note book and slid them along the table top towards the other Daniel. He knew that he would know what to do with them.

The other Daniel looked over the pages; the thoughtful frown on his features was different now. It was less frustrated and more intrigued. He shook his head.

"So many questions," he said softly.

"I know," Daniel replied. "But, I think, even with your earth gone, you can still do this."

"It'll take some convincing Jack," the other said with a small rueful smile. "He almost brained me over Vagon Brei."

"He loves you," Daniel said softly. "He'll do anything you ask." That Daniel must have sensed the sadness in his voice. He looked up at him kindly.

"Your Jack?"

Daniel looked down and away from the man, his lips pinching shut as he swallowed his disappointment and silly resentment.

"I guess there was a trade-off," the other said softly and not unkindly.

"My Jack is still a general in the US Air Force. That probably makes a lot of difference."

"But you love him. You always have."

"A lot of things are different there."

"Not that." The other Daniel drilled him with an intense gaze that brooked no argument. As much as he knew this man, that Daniel knew him as well. "You love him. You have from the moment you first met him."

"How did you two…"

"Get together?" The other finished for him. "It was so simple in the end. All we needed was a catalyst. Our world suddenly coming to an end seemed sufficient enough."

"Actually, it was me," the other admitted after a while. "He was on the Alpha Site, safe and sound. I nearly cried when I saw him. Then we found out what had happened to the earth. I lost it. First Abydos, then Earth, I was running out of places to call home. I didn't realize how important having a home was to me.

"Insanity is, in fact, a very easy place to be. They say ignorance is bliss, but in reality, there is a kind of bliss in insanity too. Jack wouldn't let me go insane. Fucking bastard that he is, kept at me. Kept prying at me, making me pay attention and keep it together. I didn't know what else to do; so I told him the whole stupid truth in the hopes I could drive him away and he would just let me go sink down. He didn't.

"I didn't know how much he loved me. I didn't know."

Daniel watched his counterpart with conflicting emotions. This was perhaps the hardest trial he had ever faced in his life and he wondered how he could harbor such burning jealousy towards a man who had obviously lost so much. His curiosity was morbid in a sense. He wanted to know, he had to know, what was it like to have the love he burned for?

"He loves you," Daniel said softly, and the other looked at him. He knew. He just knew.

"Yes," he replied. "Sometimes when he whispers my name, he presses his face against my shoulder; I feel tears, actual tears. He's not mourning. He's rejoicing." The other laughed softly as the memory took him. "He loves to bite and suck my appendix scar. He says it's sexy. It drives me insane, and the more I writhe under him, the more he does it, and keeps doing it until I shout his name…. He likes that, when I shout his name.

"He tastes wonderful, every inch of him, and he's so beautiful when I make him come…."

The other stopped abruptly, looking down at his own hands spread across the papers on the table. He cleared his throat and for a moment, Daniel thought he might apologize for going on, but he didn't. He had understood.

"You need some place to sleep," the other Daniel said softly.

"I can make due," Daniel replied.

"No," the other said almost automatic in his reaction. "You can have Jack and my bed. We can find some place else to occupy for eight hours at least."

"I can't," Daniel began. "I probably couldn't get any sleep any how."

"You can," the other interrupted with a kind smile. "Look, Sam, Teal'c and Vala will probably be up all night making sure the reactor is going to be able to send you back home. Mitchell will be at the wheel muttering to himself about bad intel and useless slackers and I'll be waving this under Jack's nose for the better part of this evening trying to convince him that we need a second try at that weapon." He brandished the notebook papers that Daniel had gave him. "I think, in all honesty, no one will sleep tonight. However, as our guest, you deserve the right to at least not be able to sleep in relative comfort."


	4. Chapter 4

The room the other Daniel led him to was lit by the same warm, yellow lighting as in the galley. The room was small, hardly enough space for two full grown men. The bed was not spacious, but it was just enough. It was neatly made, and Daniel imagined that that was probably Jack's influence. Daniel himself could barely be relied upon to change the bed linens weekly, let alone make a bed. The room was cluttered but surprisingly neat. Things were where they belonged. On a small table beside the bed, a nightstand with a small reading lamp sat a collection of objects, the most interesting objects being a faded and roughly-used picture of Sha're and a small wallet size school photo of Charlie in second grade.

Daniel looked down on the two absent loved ones. He then looked back at his counterpart who was leaning against the door frame.

"If you need anything, the ship's communication interface is right here next to the door." He pointed to a small touch pad panel. "This first button here will connect you to the bridge. Mitchell can help you locate us or get you help from there."

"Thank you."

The other didn't respond but only smiled softly, sadly.

"You know, you really don't have to…"

"Yes," he whispered. "Yes, I do."

With that he was gone, the door smoothly rolling close behind him.

Daniel walked about the small room one more time, examining the cramped, little desk in the corner that held papers, notes written on scrap sheets and note pads in his own hand writing. It was translations of a sort. It was code. This reality's Daniel used his skills as a linguist to code and decode important intelligence for their resistance. Daniel frowned over the characters for a minute. It intrigued him, and he had to wonder what kind of complex system they had developed. He ran his finger down a page filled with characters that resembled those of Mandarin Chinese.

The metal, folding chair pushed in at the desk had an olive BDU jacket hanging from its back rest. The name over the left breast pocket read "O'Neill."

Daniel ran his hand reverently over the rough fabric then turned away, back to the bed. It was *their* bed. They slept there. They made love there. The other Daniel had said that Jack liked to nip and lick at his appendectomy scar. Daniel could imagine it. He could see it in his mind's eye, Jack holding him tightly, his mouth moving down his chest and belly, finally settling on the long, straight scar. Laving the pink, raised tissue with his tongue, and then nipping gently starting at one end and moving slowly down the length of it. It would drive him wild.

Daniel sat down on the bed, pushing the erotic thought from himself as he did. It was bad enough that he would sleep in the two men's bed, but to fantasize about what they did there? Pretending it was him and not that reality's Daniel?

He rubbed his forehead, hoping that the tightness behind his eyes would not become a full-blown headache. Looking about himself one more time, he wondered if he would be able to settle himself enough to even get a little rest. He felt absolutely drained.

It never really occurred to him that he should be worried; that Sam may be unable to pull a miracle out of her ass in this reality, and make it possible for him to return home. It was obviously a mistake coming here, coming to this reality where everyone he cares for was locked in space, in a floating insane asylum called Der fliegende Holländer. They were holding on to threads of hopes that they knew were nonexistent. Daniel only hoped that what he gave his counterpart would give them something a little more substantial.

The door to the room rolled open smoothly and Daniel looked up.

"Of all the spaceships in all the galaxies, in all the universes, you had to materialize on mine."

Jack O'Neill leaned against his arm, propped on the door frame and regarded Daniel.

"Um…." Daniel fidgeted uncomfortably. "Your bed."

"Yes, it is," Jack looked him over carefully.

Daniel got up, looking down at the place where his behind had left a crease in the neat sheets. "Ah, sorry."

"Don't be," Jack said easily. "It's yours tonight. Take it easy." He came towards Daniel. "I don't bite… well, not in any way that you would find unpleasant."

That comment made Daniel twitch ever so slightly. He cleared his throat, hoping like hell that he wasn't blushing. When he pulled himself together again, he found himself face to face with Jack. He was too close, and Daniel was looking into his hard, dark eyes, mesmerized. He was a man that appeared to be made of cold stone, but the heat of him was real. It was too real, and too close. Daniel wanted to back away but he was up against the bed. His only options were to sit down again or try to push past the man.

Daniel cleared his throat again, pulling himself up to his full height. This was only Jack O'Neill and he had dealt with Jack O'Neill before. This man was not so different from his own Jack. He shouldn't feel so off balance.

Except this man had told his Daniel that he loved him. This man had made love to his Daniel Jackson.

"You… I-I thought you and Daniel… Um… the… um…" Daniel found himself making useless hand gestures as he tried desperately to remember how to say the words "would discuss the information I gave him."

"He showed me what you wrote about that ascended being killing gizmo."

"Ah, yeah…" But the haze began to lift from Daniel's brain a bit. If Jack was in here, then his counterpart wasn't getting his fair shot at pitching the proposal to resume the search. That was enough to motivate him from his lust-induced state of bemusement. He pushed past Jack determinedly, his mind made up to argue the point for his counterpart instead.

"Look Jack," Daniel began on the first circuit of a short pace about the small quarters. "I know that what happened on Vagon Brei may have seemed bad, but you know that anything worth having is worth the risk. We've walked into dangerous situations a thousand times on orders. We've made tough choices. You've made tough choices…"

"Daniel."

"That weapon is out there, and if you can get it, you could turn the tide of this war. The Ori would have no choice but to respect the sovereignty of the protected planets if they knew we had a weapon that could do harm to them."

"Daniel." Jack reached out an arm, catching Daniel in mid-stride. "I told him we would look for it."

Daniel blinked as he looked at Jack. Jack smiled a small, soft smile, so like and yet unlike his own Jack. The warmth of the smile was familiar to Daniel. The heat in Jack's deep brown eyes, however, was not so familiar. He let Daniel go, and took off his leather bomber jacket.

"I know that shirt," Daniel said softly as he saw the clean lines of the silver-gray button down shirt Jack wore. Untucked, it hung on him perfect, showing off his lean, sturdy built. Its color accented his hair beautifully.

"I should think you would. You bought it for me. How many birthdays ago was that? I stopped counting after forty-something. Numbers kept creeping up faster than I learned to count."

That made Daniel smile. So typical of Jack to make light of everything, including himself. His hand reached out absently to touch the hem of the shirt. For a second, he fingered the soft, fine silk weave.  
"How did you get it back?" Daniel asked softly.

Jack expelled a long breath and moved back from Daniel. He sat on the edge of the bed, where Daniel had been. His elbows on his knees, his fingertips tapped together without a rhythm as he regarded Daniel.

"We went back to the Earth. We sorta had to see it for ourselves, I guess."

He looked down when Daniel tried to catch his gaze.

"It was both a good and bad move, for a lot of reasons," Jack continued. "We caught a ride with a few of our good buddy Tok'ra allies." For perhaps the first time ever, Daniel didn't hear the bitter sarcasm in Jack's voice behind the epithet.

"We took all we could hold, food, clothing, guns, ammo, C4. We looted what we could use. We took what we could of our personal effects; the shit we could carry on the run." Jack reached over and grabbed Sha're's picture from the bedside table. "That's how you got this back."

Jack looked the picture over carefully. "But I guess that wasn't you, was it?"

"Not really," Daniel said softly.

"It was really strange, kinda surreal, walking down a street in a full space suit, seeing houses, cars, telephone polls. Dead people. There was gravity, just corrupted atmosphere, so everyone was perfectly preserved, if a little frosty. Sky looked funny, sorta dark purple, and it was mid day… but it looked like sunset. The light always looked like sunset. Gotterdammerung.

"We were there with a couple of Marines from SG15 and two scientists from SG6. Me, Daniel, Teal'c and Mitchell. We couldn't stay long. Radiation was really high still. We went to the mountain. There was a big hole in the side of it. Stargate was sheered in half. It looked like there was a fire as well. Lots of burnt wreckage. Lots of fried good people." Jack stopped for a moment, and Daniel wished with all his heart that he was done. He didn't want to hear any more, but he didn't protest when Jack took in a deep, slow breath and continued.

"The mountain wasn't so bad as going around town. We took what we could from our own homes, like I said. Then we went to the grocery stores and took all the dry goods we could carry. By then, I had figured out, as had most of the military grunts in our little raiding party, that the work goes easier and faster if you don't look at the bodies.

"One of the SG6 guys got sick in his suit pretty damn fast. We sent him back to the ship to help organize the cargo. I lost track of Daniel for a bit. He'd been a little punch drunk… I don't know. Shock fucks people in strange ways, and never the same thing twice. I'd always figured he'd be okay. He's a scrapper.

"I found him in the baby food aisle. There was this woman on the floor. Beneath her was a pair of frosty chubby legs, just poking out from the side. It was obvious that she had tried to shield her child from whatever it was that was happening to them. Didn't matter. Nothing could have saved them at that point. Daniel was just standing there over them, staring. I got him out of there.

"He didn't talk; he wouldn't talk, not the whole trip back to our small refugee camp on Chulak. He was going mad, right there in front of me. I wasn't gonna let him leave me like that…not that way. We'd been through too much together.

"Jacob wanted to sedate him. Mitchell wanted to use him for a punching bag, hoping to slap the sense back into him. Me, I kept talking at him, trying to make him talk back. For days, I talked at him."

Jack looked at the picture of Sha're still in his hands. "I showed Daniel this, and ripped him a new asshole about how disappointed she would be in him. That made him look at me for about...oh…two seconds; then nothing, nadda. I got to the point where I thought Mitchell's plan was looking pretty do-able." He put Sha're's picture back on the table.

"I sorta cracked, myself, and I was shaking him, hard." Jack's hands clenched in to fists. "I could have broken his neck. I was screaming at him, 'Daniel Jackson, you fucking bastard! Don't you leave me like this!'

"He looked up, into my eyes and he said, 'I love you, Jack.' And he started crying, and then I was crying, and we were two blubbering babies sitting on a dirt floor in a tent, on a world thousands of light years away from where we started. He told me that he loved me. I told him that I loved him too, and I needed him.

"Stay for me…" That last sentence Jack whispered so very softly that Daniel barely caught it. He knew then that that was what Jack had whispered in the corridor when he had first seen the love between the two men.

Jack looked up into his eyes, the intensity of them overwhelmed Daniel once more and he was caught fast by their spell as Jack stood and approached him. He was too close once more, and there was nothing Daniel wanted to do about it. Then one of Jack's large calloused hands was resting lightly on his cheek. Slowly, tenderly, his thumb smoothed over Daniel's lower lip in sweet reverence. Daniel swallowed, his lips parting slightly. It was becoming a little difficult to breathe right.

Too close, and Jack was getting closer. So close. Jack's lips touched his, and the core of Daniel's reason melted beneath the heat of his kiss. Daniel never knew Jack's lips felt so good, and that he tasted so good. He had never dreamed that Jack could kiss so very sweetly; that his lips would be soft and tender, and yet firm against his own. He had never imagined that kissing Jack would make his heart beat so wildly and heat flash over his skin and sweat break-out across his back and on the palms of his hands.

He never knew that one small, gentle kiss from Jack could make his body thrum with need and his loins ache, awakening against the urgent summons of desire. Then Jack released the kiss, but did not back up. Instead he waited, hovering so close, their lips almost touching. Jack held still. Daniel felt anticipation bubble through his body, making him vibrate like a wire pulled too tight. He knew what Jack was waiting for.

He brought his mouth back to Jack's kissing him soundly, passionately. Daniel's arms slipped about him, one hand firmly holding him at the neck, the other on the small of Jack's back and smoothing downward in a deliberate motion. Daniel pulled their bodies together, wanting more. Jack's mouth opened to his, and Daniel took what was offered, his tongue sweeping sweetly through, tasting Jack fully.

They came up from the kiss breathless and gazing in each other's eyes. Daniel could see that the bitter, cold stones that had been Jack's eyes were replaced by dark fires. Jack plucked the glasses from Daniel's nose, and with his long reach, deposited them on the small desk among the scattered papers. Now, everything except Jack was slightly out of focus, but Jack was so close that it didn't matter. The way the light was softened behind him, and the way his imperfect vision blurred the edges, just made Jack look that much more beautiful. Jack was perfect.

Then Jack's lips were on his again; his kisses demanding and slow. He sucked tenderly on Daniel's tongue when he dared to chase Jack's tongue back in to his mouth. Daniel was feeling light-headed and out of control when Jack's mouth smoothed downward, releasing Daniel's lower lip with a tender nip, then sucking and biting lightly on his jaw. Daniel groaned softly when Jack's lips lightly touched a pulse point. The light touch sent a jolt of arousal straight to his groin, and Daniel found himself grinding the growing erection in his pants impatiently against Jack's thigh.

Jack pulled the BDU jacket from Daniel's shoulders, and Daniel cooperated, whipping the jacket off in a frenzy, his attention still somewhat occupied with Jack's soft lips. Jack's hand went beneath Daniel's black shirt, and that decided Daniel. He needed to be naked! He pulled himself from Jack, all the while, struggling out of his shirt. Jack guided him to the bed and helped him sit down. Daniel reached for his boots, but Jack stopped him.

Jack knelt before him. As gentle as a geisha, and ten times as loving, he undid Daniel's boots, pulling them from his feet. He then pulled off his socks, placing them inside the boots for safe keeping. Jack then ran his hands slowly up Daniel's thighs. Jack's eyes were rich, dark fires that held Daniel as deeply as an embrace. His hands carefully ran over the rough material of Daniel's BDUs. His fingers were nimble on the button fly. Jack then firmly smoothed the pants down. Daniel raised his hips slightly to let them slip past, along with his briefs. Jack pulled them down his legs and off from his feet.

Daniel was already achingly hard, wanting like he had not been in a very long while. It had been so long since he had been with a man, and it had been longer since he had known that he loved Jack. He knew he was trembling. Jack's hands smoothed back up his thighs. Then they were at his waist, and Jack was pushing him back on the bed, his lips and tongue making sensuous contact with Daniel's appendectomy scar. Jack licked the long, pink scar, just as Daniel imagined. He nipped it lightly with his teeth, and the sensation was electrifying. It made Daniel shiver and moan. He clutched helplessly at the bed sheets as Jack nipped gently at the sensitive flesh, and then soothed it with long wet strokes of his tongue. Jack caught the raised flesh again with his teeth, pulling it slightly, sucking on the scar.

"Oh, god! Oh Jack!" Daniel moaned.

But Jack didn't let up. He, in fact, attacked the scar with more enthusiasm, nipping harder and sucking longer until Daniel was moaning and writhing beneath him. His abdominal muscles rippled under the electric sensations. His cock was positively throbbing, his balls tight and aching.

"Jack! Oh Jack!" he cried out.

With a final lick, Jack relented, looking up Daniel's quivering body. He came up the bed to lie next to him, skimming a hand over Daniel's chest to gently thumb a nipple; Jack laid soft kisses against his throat, chin and lips. He then looked into Daniel's eyes.

Daniel reached for him then, grasping him behind the neck and pulling him down for a scorching, desperate kiss. Jack pulled away, gently, smiling down at him. Jack's hand caressed his cheek again, his thumb running slowly against Daniel's lower lip once more.

"You are the most beautiful man…" Jack said softly.

Daniel gazed up at Jack. Such an incredible being, so strong and yet so vulnerable; this was the man that the Asgard named a battle cruiser after. This was the man he, Daniel Jackson, fell hopelessly in love with over twelve years ago on a sandy little planet called Abydos.

"You are beautiful," Daniel whispered, reaching up to touch Jack's face. Jack smiled down on him, soft and sad.

"I'm just a fat, old bastard who doesn't know his nose from his asshole sometimes."

Daniel laughed a little at that but answered, "Never old… and far from fat."

"But I'm a bastard."

"Oh, without a doubt."

They chuckled together for a short moment and then were quiet, just gazing into each other's eyes. Jack began to unbutton his shirt. Daniel watched as Jack revealed the lightly haired, golden skin of his chest. Daniel laid a hand tenderly to the exposed flesh, running his fingers delicately down to Jack's navel. Jack held still as Daniel undid the fly of his pants. Daniel slid his hand in past the waist line of Jack's briefs. After that, they were kissing again. Jack was heavy and warm, nearly on top of Daniel. Skin touched skin where Jack's shirt parted, and Daniel's fingers brushed lightly against the thickening flesh of Jack's cock. Jack backed off again.

This time he finished undressing, tossing the shirt aside and kicking off his shoes. He shucked his pants off a little awkwardly. Then he was back on Daniel, kissing him and holding him. And Daniel though he had never known a sweeter sensation in his life than the hot, silky touch of Jack's erection against his hip and abdomen. Their kisses were so slow and so passionate. Daniel was swept away in to another reality where only they existed. Nothing else mattered.

Daniel's head fell back and he groaned helplessly when Jack began to lay a trail of wet kisses down his body. He stopped to give attention to Daniel's nipples, already peaked and excited. Jack nipped lightly at them, and tongued them mercilessly. Finally he sucked sweetly on them as his hands ran reverently up and down Daniel's smooth flesh. Then Jack continued downward. He licked briefly at the appendectomy scar again and then sucked lightly on one of Daniel's hip bones.

When Jack touched him lightly at the junction between groin and thigh, Daniel's thighs fell open in anticipation. Then Jack's mouth and tongue was there, nuzzling in kisses and lick at the crease, slowly moving inward. It was the sweetest torture Daniel had ever endured. When Jack finally kissed his sac, Daniel let out an explosive gasp, and then moaned with a bone deep shiver. Jack sucked one of Daniel's balls into his mouth, tenderly bathing it with his tongue. Jack released it with a loud smack.

"Good?" he asked, his breath was cool on the wet skin of Daniel's sac. It made Daniel shiver anew.

"Bastard!" Daniel gasped. Jack chuckled lightly, and then his mouth was back, taking in the other ball.

Too good, and too sweet, and Daniel prayed silently that it would never end. He practically shouted his prayer when Jack ran his tongue up the length of Daniel's erection. Jack then swooped on to it, taking it all the way down as far as he could go. Jack moved up and down on the shaft, sucking firmly, yet carefully.

"Oh Jack… Jack… Oh Jack…" Daniel panted, his head tossing from side to side on the bed. He didn't dare look down. If he did; if he saw Jack's lovely mouth wrapped about his shaft, Daniel knew he would shoot-off right at that moment. He didn't want to. Not yet. He never wanted this to end. But then Jack released Daniel's cock, still firm and aching. Daniel bit his lip, working at not complaining about the cessation of the fellatio. Jack gently nosed downward, spreading Daniel's thighs wider. Kisses fell on Daniel's perineum. But when the single scorching kiss fell on the tight, budded entrance to his body, Daniel moaned out load again.

Yes, oh yes, he wanted that. He wanted it so very badly. He had wanted it for longer than he cared to remember. Then Jack's tongue was there and Daniel lost the ability for coherent thought as his tongue thrust and tickled, playing with the tight ring of muscles. It was incredible to Daniel, the knowledge alone that Jack knew how to do this; was willing to do this to him, for him. In between barrages of tongue play came wet kisses on Daniel's ass cheeks, on his perineum, and on his anus. Daniel though he could die of this loving.

Jack reached back momentarily. There was a pause as the wet sound of lubricant being squeezed from a bottle lightly filled the passion charged air. A slick finger inserted itself inside Daniel, as Jack came back up to the appendectomy scar, just tenderly licking it. Jack rubbed his face to Daniel's stomach, nuzzling the scar with a small, desperate whimper. Two fingers now, stretching Daniel; reaching in, all the way inside.

Jack's fingers lightly brushed the spot inside of Daniel that sent a sparkling shimmer of pleasure through his body.

"Oh…" Daniel moaned. His eyes rolled back in his head briefly.

Three fingers now, stretching and filling him; moving so carefully. A wet mouth, panting against his scar.

"Danny!"

"Please," Daniel whispered, begging Jack to complete him.

The fingers slipped free from him, but only a moment passed before the heated, blunt end of Jack's erection was making the attempt to breach Daniel's entrance. Jack went slow. The slick, hot head made its way in first; then inch by arduous inch, Jack eased his way in. Finally, he was all the way, balls deep inside Daniel.

Daniel looked up only then to see Jack looking down on him with such a wondrous, loving gaze, it left Daniel completely breathless.

Then they were moving. Jack held Daniel's legs open as he moved between them. Jack continued to look down on Daniel, watching him with loving eyes; his lips trembling as if he needed to say something but he didn't know how to say it.

Daniel ran his hands over ever inch of Jack that he could reach, whispering his love to him and not caring. He had forgotten that this was not his Jack and that he did not belong in this reality. For now, for this moment, Daniel was where he always wanted to be.

"Jack… Jack, love you… so much… "

It didn't matter. He was there in that moment. It could be eternity, or it could be just a dream, but it was his. Jack was his.

Jack leaned over him and kissed him deeply. The angles of his thrust changed and soon Daniel was gasping and moaning breathlessly as sparks of pleasure danced through him. He took his erection into hand. He was so close. So very close.

"Oh Jack!" Daniel howled his pleasure as he came, he could feel himself clenching about Jack's unyielding erection. Jack grunted. Daniel was trembling in aftershocks as he watched Jack come.

Jack's eyes squeezed shut and he groaned out low and long. His face was flush with the effort of enduring the intensity of the pleasure. At last it released him with an almost visible shock of relief and Jack's eye flew wide open again. He caught himself before he could fall on Daniel. Jack lowered his head to Daniel's shoulder as he caught his breath.

Their sweat mingled, the sweat from Jack's brow and the sweat from Daniel's shoulder and chest. Daniel could feel Jack's cooling breaths on his wet skin. At last, Jack's breathing slowed. Carefully, he withdrew from Daniel.

It was over. They had been one for a brief moment in time, but now that moment was lost. It was only for Daniel's memories. But Jack maneuvered Daniel up on the bed and stretched out next to him. Gently, he pulled him in his arms, oblivious to the drying sweat and semen. Jack held Daniel close.

After a long while, Daniel spoke. "This was a payment for the information I gave you."

Jack looked at him solemnly, and Daniel though he might chose not to reply. But eventually he did. "Danny wanted you to know."

Daniel closed his eyes. His counterpart did understand all to well. He wanted Daniel to know how it felt to be loved by Jack.

"You know," Jack said softly, "as long as he wears that uniform, he's never going to fess up on how he really feels."

"I know."

"He's an idiot," Jack said on the end of what sounded like a somber sigh.

"Yeah, but he's my idiot," Daniel answered.

Jack just held him tighter.


	5. Chapter 5

Daniel knew he could be totally philosophical about this night. Tonight Jack, his Jack, would make love to a man who was basically him in almost every way except one: he was himself only in another reality. It wasn't so bad when he thought about it. Technically, Jack was not being unfaithful, doubly so since it was his, Daniel's, idea. He had had to talk Jack into it.

Daniel went down to the engine room and checked on Sam's progress.

"It wasn't as hard as it looked," Sam admitted. "We were able to open a dimensional bridge twice now without any strong power flux. I think we should be able to put him back in his reality. His mirror is probably still wide open."

"If it isn't?" Daniel asked.

Sam shrugged slightly. "He'll go where a dimensional bridge is open. He could wind up on an odyssey."

"But he has little choice," Teal'c interjected. "He cannot stay here."

That much was true. His existence in that universe was on borrowed time. They had to send him home or send him on.

"Get some sleep, Daniel," Sam said as she laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. "Teal'c and I are going to get some rest now. It'll work or it won't. We don't have a lot of choices here."

Daniel nodded and then left the two to the wrap-up of their evenings work. He wandered the ship aimlessly for a time. He found himself in the sterile infirmary, the only other place with a bed. He decided against it. Instead, he roamed to the cargo hold, looking over the crates and boxes of canned goods and non-perishables that they stored and coffee that they picked up last pit stop. He remembered Jack telling him a story about a commanding officer he had while in special ops who had no time to wait for a brewed cup of coffee, so he ate the grounds mixed with sugar from a Ziploc bag.

Eventually his feet carried him back to the door of his and Jack's quarters. All was quiet. Daniel sank down to the deck floor with his back against the wall next to the door, resting his head on the cold metal bulkhead. For some reason, he felt as if that was where he belonged that night.  
~*~

He woke up alone, but he wasn't surprised. Daniel slipped out of the bed he had shared for a short time with Jack and made his way to the quarters' small bathroom. The space was cramped, room for only one body. Yet, Daniel knew that Jack and his counterpart managed to share just fine. He could imagine the complicated dance involving lifted elbows and shifting hips as each man jockeyed for position before the small stainless steel basin.

Jack had left him a fresh towel and a toothbrush sitting at the foot of the bed. Daniel took advantage of the generosity. The small shower cubical was already stocked with soap. There was even a bottle of Daniel's preferred dandruff shampoo. It was the only kind that didn't make him break out in hives. There was a clean disposable razor waiting for him as well.

Freshly showered and shaved, Daniel dressed. His clothing which he knew he had flung in different directions that past night were sitting, neatly folded on the metal chair at the desk. He put on his glasses that were still sitting on the desk. It was time to go home.

They had breakfast ready for him at the galley common table. He was given toast with butter and coffee, strong and black. Once more, he ate with them in a strange, awkward silence. However, this was not the silence of wariness any longer. There was an anxiety that was etched into every person's face that Daniel saw plainly. He looked over at his counterpart, but that Daniel refused to look up from the steaming coffee in his mug. It was as if he was trying to divine the future from its depths.

Jack met his gaze, his eyes no longer cold and hard. He was just Jack, but with a sadness. Daniel could not look at that sadness for too long.  
~*~

"We are very certain that it works," Sam said to him, looking him directly in the eyes. "What we can't be certain of is if your mirror is still active. If it is, you should end up in your reality."

"If it isn't?" BDU Daniel asked.

She hesitated. It was the exact same question that their own Daniel had asked last night. Last night, it had been easy to answer as she had looked into her Daniel's eyes. He was not the one at risk. She disliked taking chances with the lives of people she cared about, and even though she knew this was not her Daniel Jackson, she also knew that he was some other Sam's Daniel. He deserved her care.

"Well, I would assume that a new matrix would be formed to bridge you to another reality that coincides with a point B on the slope of the tangent."

"English, Carter," the general drawled from behind her.

"Um, the bridge would open a new point in another reality that was primed and in position… um having the same slope… ah… Fuck, he'll go somewhere else, sir." She thought she might get a migraine.

She didn't even turn to see how the general took that explanation. Vala was right. She was getting more and more insubordinate. It was such a trial some days to keep it together. She just hoped Jack didn't care. She was almost certain that he didn't, not any more.

"Okay," the general said slowly. "That's explained. Are we ready?"

Sam nodded, looking over at BDU Daniel. It was his call. He looked so confident and wise. There was something hard in this Daniel's eyes that she hadn't noticed before. Their own Daniel seemed tired and wrung out in comparison. BDU Daniel was solid, still standing on his own convictions. He looked them all in the eye. He looked unrepentant.

"I'm ready," he said, and she knew that he knew that he had no choice. He could not stay. He was prepared to face whatever fate awaited him.

"Okay," Sam said. "We need to get you in position. You can't step into the inner core until we establish the opening bridge. Any sooner and you'll be irradiated."

BDU Daniel smiled slightly. "No thank you. Once in nine life times is enough."

Sam chuckled, getting the joke. Vala poked her side giving her a questioning look. She wanted in on the joke. "Later, we'll tell you later."

"Well, then," Sam addressed BDU Daniel again, "on my mark, you open the inner core portal and step in. It should be instantaneous."

He nodded. "Thank you, Sam." And she knew what he was really saying was, 'I trust you Sam.'

"Good luck," Vala said with a small rueful smile. She started to reach for him, but then stopped.

"Thank you." BDU Daniel gave her a sincere smile.

"Good luck, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said with a solemn bow of his head. "May your journey be a success."

"Thank you, Teal'c."

Sam had to wonder if BDU Daniel would tell the Rya'c of his reality of this brave warrior Teal'c that he found in another existence.

"Take it easy, buddy," Mitchell said sincerely, and BDU Daniel smiled again.

"You too."

At last he turned to face Daniel. The two looked at each other for a moment and Sam noticed their own Daniel's chin lifting and the strength coming into his eyes. It was as if BDU Daniel was transferring some of his relentless conviction into their Daniel. Soon they faced each other on equal terms, looking into each other's faces with equal decisiveness.

"S'enebe," BDU Daniel said to their Daniel. (Farewell)

"S'enebe," Daniel replied. "Dewa-n'eTeri" (Farewell. I thank the god for you.)

"'aD i'sene." (Be safe, my brother)

Sam listened to the two men as they spoke to each other in Abydoian, marveling as she always did at the succinctness of the language.

Then BDU Daniel turned, looking into the face of the general. The moment was brief, but even Sam could feel the power of it. She looked away, feeling uncomfortable for a moment, as if she had stepped in on something very private.

Finally, BDU Daniel moved into place, going in past the two primary portals to the outer core. Sam knew it was uncomfortably hot in there but relatively safe for short periods. She worked quickly, readjusting the reactions parabolic flow. The dimensional door opened with hardly a flash. Sam nodded to BDU Daniel. With a brave tilt to his head, he nodded back in acknowledgement. He then pulled on the thick inner core door and stepped in. He was consumed by the light. The parabola spiked again and the dimensional door was closed. Sam hit the shut down on the mains.

After a moment scan, she was confident that all residual radiation had dissipated.

"He's gone," Vala said softly. She was looking through the core portal glass. Sam stepped beside her. The core was empty of any organic matter. There was nothing there but the naquada rods in their containment. The General peered over her shoulder.

"Safe trip, Danny," he said softly.  
~*~

His notes were where he left them, complete with the ticket stub from London Heathrow Airport from his return flight stuffed between the pages. The mirror had been left on. Apparently, no one had come to check and see what Dr. Jackson had been up to for close to eighteen hours.

Daniel smiled to himself. Sometimes the places with the highest security lets the littlest things slip past their notice. It hardly seemed important to know what Dr. Jackson was doing as long as he was not breaching the security of the area. He rubbed his brow hard with his fingertips and looked down at his wrist watch.

Jack would be there soon, in maybe an hour or two. He'd promised him a ride back to the SGC. Daniel was grateful. He had had enough of commercial airliners. Their canned, poor quality air played havoc on his sinuses. Jack would fly him home.

Daniel picked up his notes and turned to the mirror. Its surface had gone back to its initial state. Carefully he shut it down and pulled the dust cloth back in place over it. He was done with it forever. He left the storage area in search of a quiet place to review his notes.

Three hours and four cups of coffee later in the area 51 commissary, he looked up to find Maj. General Jack O'Neill looking down at him wearing an olive drab flight suit, and his hands on his hips.

"Whatcha doin', Daniel?"

Daniel blinked at him, slightly taken aback by the buoyant humor in his Jack's eyes. This was the Jack he was use to. "Waiting for you. Can we go now?"

"Yeah sure," Jack said turning to look out a window. "Weather's good all the way. We should be in Colorado Springs before nightfall."

"That would be nice," Daniel admitted. "I'd like to sleep in my own bed tonight."

"I think we can arrange that," Jack said lightly.

Daniel stood, grabbing his notes. He began to follow Jack out, falling in step beside him, keeping up with his long strides. He looked over at Jack.

> _"You know, as long as he wears that uniform, he's never going to fess up on how he really feels."_

Jack looked back at Daniel. "What?"

"Nothing," Daniel said softly, and then for no reason he could discern, he began to laugh.

"What?" Jack stopped, looking at Daniel with a disapproving glare. "You're laughing at me. What is it? Do I have spinach in my teeth? Is my fly undone?" Jack looked down to examine the status of his fly. "I'm not an idiot, Daniel."

Daniel hid his smile momentarily with his fist, trying to regain control. When he finally did, he wasn't surprised to feel moisture at the corners of his eye.

"Oh, but you're my idiot, Jack," he said brightly.

"C'mon." Jack pulled on his sleeve impatiently.

Daniel followed.

The End.


End file.
